Tantara will premiere globally on Netflix on Friday, December 11, 2026. Song Hye-kyo and Gong Yoo lead the Korean period drama, which follows people trying to climb from poverty into the music business across the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
The exact date replaces the broad fourth-quarter window Netflix gave the series in January. It also closes a longer naming loop: Netflix first announced the production in February 2025 under the working title Show Business before presenting it as Tantara in its 2026 Korean slate.
Min-ja and Dong-gu start at the bottom of the music business
Song Hye-kyo plays Min-ja, who enters the record industry after an impoverished childhood spent taking whatever work she could find. Gong Yoo plays Dong-gu, her childhood friend and partner in the same climb. Netflix's new poster shows their route through nightclub jobs and into work as rookie talent managers rather than placing both characters on stage.
That distinction gives the series a wider frame than a conventional rise-to-fame story. Min-ja and Dong-gu are positioned between artists and the business that manufactures stars, while the three-decade setting lets the drama follow an industry changing around them. Netflix describes the period as harsh and violent; that is the company's framing of the fictional drama, not an independent historical finding.
Their first artist completes the central four-character setup
Kim Seol-hyun plays Min-hui, a confident singer who becomes the pair's first artist and shares a complicated history with Min-ja. Cha Seung-won plays Seok Gil-yeo, the era's leading hitmaker, a composer known within the story for turning newcomers into stars. The announced ensemble also includes Lee Hanee as aspiring singer Yang-ja and Na Moon-hee as Mal-soon.
Writer Noh Hee-gyoung, whose credits include Our Blues and Dear My Friends, created the series with director Lee Yoon-jung, known for Coffee Prince. GTIST, Studio Dragon and Imaginus are listed as producers in Netflix's 2026 slate materials. The combination points to an ensemble drama about labor, ambition and personal ties inside show business, but Netflix has not released footage that would establish the final tone or scale.
Netflix has announced the date, but not the release format
The October 22 announcement delivered a date poster rather than a trailer. Netflix has not stated the episode count, runtimes or whether Tantara will arrive as one full-season batch or on a weekly schedule in the opened global materials. Reports that attach an episode total therefore go beyond what Netflix has confirmed here.
For now, December 11 is the firm planning detail. The next useful update will be a trailer or release-format announcement that shows how much of the three-decade story Netflix intends to make available on premiere day.
